Paul was introduced to former English National Ballet dancer Andre by his previous boyfriend and manager Brendan Murphy, who died suddenly from a brain tumour at the age 49, just days before Paul’s 50th birthday.

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Andre was at Paul's side, together with his sister Sheila (left) and daughter Sharyn, when he collected his OBE.

This isn’t the TV star’s first marriage. In 1977 he wed Portuguese model Teresa Fernandez after her family pressurised her into walking down the aisle.

Speaking about the ‘marriage of convenience’, Paul explained: “We worked in a club in Westbourne Grove, London, when I was 22. She was from a very strict Catholic family and was always being hassled by them: ‘Why aren’t you getting married?’ So I said: ‘Come on then, we’ll get married’, and we did.

“We were married for 27 years. I had no idea we were still married until my manager Brendan said, ‘If anything happened to you, everything would go to your wife’. It’s like a real life Corrie story line.”